Demon
by Silver Foil
Summary: “Do you think me a demon now, Cloud?” AVALANCHE is ambushed, Vincent goes loco. Go figure.


Demon 

"Hey, Vincent." Cloud's voice cut across the comparative serenity of the journey.

"Strife." Vincent's reply was brief and to the point, as always.

"What did you mean when you said you are a demon?"

Vincent simply looked at him, as if the meaning of his words were blatantly obvious.

"I mean, there isn't really anything all that strange about you. I know you can transform into those other shapes, and that can be pretty gruesome, but I've never seen any of them attack us either, so they can't be all that bad, can they?"

"You forgot that he has these weird-ass glowy eyes," Yuffie cut across any reply, brash as always, "and he can fly, and has kinda creepy taste in fashion, and is always moaning about some woman or other–"

"She was not 'some woman or other', Yuffie." Vincent's retort was unexpectantly sharp.

"Geez, Vinne, you don't have to get all riled up about it," the thief's tone clearly implied that she was in the mood to annoy someone, and had found one of the sharpshooters's buttons. "just 'cause some broad dumped you thirty years ago doesn't mean you have to get all huffy–"

She abruptly cut off as a Vincent wheeled to face her, crimson eyes blazing. He stood a full six inches taller than her, and his good hand was very conspicuously resting on his pistol. "Do **not**–"

The rest of the sentence was cut off as two dozen Shinra troopers burst from the ground slightly ahead of them, dirt and soil cascading down around them.

"Freeze!"

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'Damn' was the first thought that crossed Cloud's mind. He'd never seen that strategy before. What's more, these weren't normal blue-coated soldiers, but members of SOLDIER, a mix of first, second and third class by the looks of it.

By no means an impossible situation, but decidedly dicey. He hurriedly tried to think of a clever plan, when he was interrupted by a sound behind him. He turned to look…

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Vincent growled. Eyes wild, teeth bared in an animalistic snarl.

Anyone who had been with the gunslinger for any length of time will know that he is somewhat dispassionate and rarely expresses strong emotion, and so it came as a shock that his voice was filled with hate, rage and bloodlust in equal measure.

Vincent strode toward the SOLDIERs, not even reaching for his gun. Gradually accelerating, still with that expression fixed on his face as his cloak fluttered, despite the lack of wind.

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Cloud was about to call the man back: rushing at the enemy would do no good, but he figured that the ex-Turk knew what he was doing, so he slowly inched his hand toward the hilt of his sword, ready to leap into action.

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Fingers tightened on triggers. Rifles aimed at his heart.

Still Vincent advanced.

The ground were he had stood a millisecond earlier was torn apart by a fusillade of bullets. He'd abruptly accelerated, moving towards the enemy so fast as to be a blur. His cloak seemed to expand, so that it was thirty-foot wide and taller than a man.

Before the SOLDIERs could react, the writhing mass of crimson velvet was upon them, and the screaming began…

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Cloud hit the deck as a long spray of bullets missed him by inches, and motioned for everyone else to follow suit.

What the hell was this?

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Sporadic bursts of gunfire, the sound of blood being spilled and bones broken were the only things they could hear.

Occasionally a lone trooper was seen through a gap in the red, desperately firing or slashing at something they couldn't see. Invariably, they would be snatched away by nothing or re-obscured by the shifting folds.

"Fall back! FALL BACK, DAM-!" An authoritive voice tried to rise above the sounds of slaughter, commendably calm, before being cut off in mid-bellow as the shout turned to a wet gurgle.

The members of AVALANCHE endured this grisly audio nightmare for a full minute before the mass finally receded, shrinking back to nothing.

All twenty-four of the SOLDIERs had been bloodily eviscerated, limbs and body parts literally strewn across the blood-soaked field. Not a single one was entirely intact, and most were missing large portions.

Most sickening, and terrifying, of all, however, was Vincent.

He stood alone in the middle of the corpses, entrails tangled in his claw and drenched in blood. Not a single square inch seemed to free of the scarlet liquid. His clothes were drenched and thin rivulets ran down his face.

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Cloud couldn't believe it.

What kind of person could, or **would**, do such a thing?

He'd seem death before, he'd seem just how much the human body could be mangled, but this was more like butchery.

He heard sounds of retching behind him.

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His expression gradually relaxed from its previous fixed grimace to a look of horror. Looking around, he seemed to realise what he'd done, almost like he was waking from a dream. He turned to Cloud, resignation and grim finality filling his tone.

"Do you think me a demon now, Cloud?"

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A/N: I'm not entirely sure why I wrote this. Probably trying to balance Vincent out (i.e. so that he appropriately psychotic) against the other ideas I have brewing away in my mind.

Vincent has the angst paragraph at the end not because he killed them (he was a Turk, after all), but the senselessly brutal and savage way of doing it.

My apologies for making Yuffie annoying in this. I needed and antagonist, and she's the easiest one to write, so I volentold her. Problem is, I didn't think I could do Cid and Barret justice, as my memory as to how they spoke is somewhat hazy. Advice anyone?

NB: Edited 15/8/2006 


End file.
